Is Your Boss Grinding You Down?

A few tips to help you handle a micromanaging supervisor

I’m sure many of us have been the victim of a micromanaging boss or supervisor at some point. Or we’ve heard a friend or colleague complaining about their boss displaying these traits.

But what actually is it?

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines it thus:

“Manage(ment), especially with excessive control or attention on details.”

In short, it’s a supervisor or manager with an obsessive interest in the minute details of a project or the jobs of their direct reports. They avoid the delegation of decisions and check or direct every step of a process. They don’t use a leader’s approach of giving general direction and then stepping back.

You may have worked for a micromanager before. If so, you’ll have experienced the fireworks that go off when you make a decision without consulting them, even if it’s well within your authority.

The micromanager is usually a control freak who delegates work to their staff, then monitors every aspect of their performance. They’ll nit-pick over unimportant tiny details. It’s a strategy that allows the micromanager to take credit and shift blame. And the effect is to trample all over employee morale.

In more extreme cases, the micromanager can be a bully, displaying domineering and aggressive traits.

So why do micromanagers behave the way they do? It can often be due to illnesses like emotional insecurity or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Some psychologists think there’s a link between the tendency to micromanage and a dysfunctional parent-child relationship. Maybe their father criticised everything they did as a child, and they’re compensating now as an adult?

Few people like being micromanaged, it suggests your manager doesn’t trust your judgment, work, or both. It leads to a lack of creativity or effort, and, sooner or later, you’ll lose interest in the job. If you’re disinterested or disengaged, you’re only going through the motions, and are probably already looking for another job.

No doubt too, if you’re feeling disenfranchised, demoralised, or have grown to hate your job, so will some of your colleagues. These things are not isolated or limited to you alone. A micromanager’s effects can be wide-ranging and can destroy an entire department or even business.

What do you do about it then? Well, there are a few options. The most obvious is to leave, seek a job somewhere else, and hope you find someone who trusts you to exercise your judgment.

Another is to talk to the micromanager, explain the problems and how it’s affecting your work and performance. This could be tricky though; micromanagers often don’t like criticism or the hint they’re doing something wrong. They might refuse to accept there’s a problem, they might turn it back on you and make it your fault.

Finally, you could approach the micromanager’s boss. This is risky, as some organisations don’t like people trying to circumvent the chain of command. You’re also putting your relationship with the micromanager at risk as, if you’ve gone over his head, he’s going to be pretty upset.

The action you chose will depend on how the business you work for operates. Some places will be open to you going to a senior manager and discussing your boss’s performance, others may not be. If it’s a small, family business, and the micromanager is a close friend or relative of the owner or CEO, then you might get nowhere.

Ultimately, working things out within the company looks better in the long run. Employers, rightly or wrongly, prefer to see people stick at a job for a few years, and any periods of short tenure might raise a red flag. You can also turn it to your advantage and use it as a discussion point on your CV and at interview. Employers often ask candidates to describe how they handled a difficult situation and resolving a problem such as this will look impressive.

In the end, it’s your decision. You can’t work for a micro-manager for the long term, it’ll destroy your morale. So you have to either leave or change the situation. Which of the options you choose will depend on the unique set of circumstances you find yourself in. Only you can figure that one out.